


born in a thunderstorm

by heartsways



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, lady surgeons having feelings, yes it's a theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9444986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsways/pseuds/heartsways
Summary: sometimes things are awkward but bernie and serena are finding ways to get through it





	

The rain is pelting down outside.  Its constant thrumming provides some relief from the silence that's yawned between them since they got home.  Bernie sits in bed, a book balanced on her lap.  Her hair is still a little damp; she can feel it slide wetly over the collar of her pale blue pajamas, touching the back of her neck with a cold caress.  She's trying not to be angry - trying even harder to concentrate on her book but she gets so little time to read these days that the effort of doing so feels more like a chore than a pleasure.  

 

Or, she thinks dolefully, perhaps she's just forgotten how.  

 

She sighs, turning a page and smoothing it down with her palm.  Her gaze flickers towards the bathroom door.  It's been closed since they stomped upstairs and into the bedroom, Serena glowering at her as she undressed with irritable fingers, snatching at her clothes and letting them fall onto the floor.  Serena's usually neat the to the point of obsession: everything has a place and everything should be put in its place.

 

Tonight, that seemed to extend to Bernie, as well.

 

Serena's been in the bathroom for at least five minutes.  It feels like much longer.  In that time, Bernie's read the same paragraph so many times the words seem emblazoned in front of her eyes and she blinks, rubbing a knuckle just above her eyebrow.  The wine she had at dinner isn't sitting well; there's a headache starting somewhere in between her brows.

 

Bernie looks at the bathroom door again.  It's probably going to get worse before it gets better.  Collateral damage, she supposes.  The inevitable fallout of the way she and Serena snapped at one another on the drive home.  Over nothing.

 

She turns another page.  She's not even looking at the book.

 

The bathroom door opens and Bernie's gaze snaps down to her lap.  She can feel Serena's presence fill the room, reaching towards her.  It reminds her of those days on the ward, when Serena's gaze would follow her every move; when Bernie would try to shake it off, resist it and not wonder at what it might mean should she surrender.

 

Since then, Bernie's waved enough white flags to put her military career to shame.  She's an expert at retreat but she's learned to use it judiciously.  Serena still gets scared, still worries about what might happen if Bernie should decide to cut and run again.  Bernie whispers promises in the night, offers platitudes in the day.  She yearns to put comfort into Serena's eyes and smooth away the doubt that gathers at the corners of her mouth.  Bernie wants permanence - longs for it and seeks it out in a woman who fascinates and infuriates her at every turn.

 

"Bernie."

 

The way Serena says her name is contrite, a benediction to earn forgiveness.  Bernie closes her eyes at the sound of it, resolutely clenching her teeth and refusing to look across the room.

 

"Bernie, I'm sorry."  Serena rustles across the carpet and the bed moves as she gingerly perches on the end of it.  

 

Bernie pretends to be engrossed in her book, trailing a fingertip across the page like she's following the text.  She hums as she glances up, seemingly emerging from deep thought.  

 

Serena's wearing a long, claret nightgown that shimmers in the muted lamplight of the room.  Freckles rise above the low neckline; two, deep red ribbon straps hold it over her shoulders.  She puts her hands into her lap, clasping them tightly together.  Her eyes look shadowed in the yellow light, a gleam over her lips even though she's wiped away all her makeup.

 

She looks like Panacea.  The thought makes Bernie's heart lurch in her chest and she's almost ashamed of it.  But the truth of the matter is that she _is_ healing, the pain of separation between who she was permitted to be and who she was hurts less.  Because being with Serena has given her aching soul some respite.  And it feels so convincing that Bernie's started to have hope for a better future.  A different one.  One where she doesn't have to hide all the time.

 

In the second she feels a flare of elation rush through her chest, it's almost immediately smothered by irritation and Bernie glares down the length of the bed to where Serena sits, apologetic and docile.

 

"What are you wearing?" Bernie asks before she can stop herself.  She can see how Serena tamps down on a retort that would only have them growling at one another again.

 

"Don't you like it?" Serena asks innocently, but she's radiant and knows it.

 

Bernie gulps and stammers out a few incoherent sounds.  "No - it's very - " she finally breathes, " - very lovely."

 

Serena takes heart from the comment, if not the way Bernie frowns at herself and pretends to be reading again.  She inches forwards on the bed towards the lump of Bernie's feet beneath the covers.

 

"It was meant to be a surprise," she begins, then stops and shakes her head.  "No," she corrects herself, "the entire evening - I had it planned.  Which is ridiculous because now you're sulking and I'm wearing a bloody - "

 

She glances down, lips pushing out in frustration.  "Well," she sighs, "this was really my last ditch attempt to put a smile on your face but I can see it's not going to work."  Getting up, Serena moves to her side of the bed - and, really, when did they start doing that whole domestic thing? - and slides under the covers.  She rolls over, her back to Bernie, and shoves a hand beneath the pillow.  If she can slow her breathing down enough to convince Bernie she's asleep then she can try to forget about the hot flush on her cheeks and the nagging discomfort in her gut.

 

Bernie moves beside her and lets out a sigh that's heavy enough to have Serena straining to listen.  But all she can hear is the insistent tapping of rain against the window and the distant sound of car tyres cutting a swathe through puddles.

 

"It doesn't rain much in the desert," Bernie suddenly says.  "It's dry and arid and you're always covered in sand no matter how hard you try not to be.  I'd come back here on leave and realise that I'd forgotten the smell of the rain, the way the air changes.  Even the way it feels on my skin, you know?"

 

Serena rolls over, looking up at Bernie.  She watches Bernie's fingers tighten around the book in her lap, fingertips turning white.

 

"It's such an inconsequential thing to miss," Bernie continues.  She glances towards the window and a tiny, sad smile blooms across her mouth.  "In the greater scheme of things that I missed out on, rain should probably be much further down the list."

 

She looks down at Serena and her eyes are luminous in the half-light.  "Tonight, I wanted to walk in the rain and hold your hand.  I wanted to be...be me.  With you.  But you didn't want that."

 

Her voice is soft and hurt enough to make Serena rise onto one elbow, looking earnestly into Bernie's eyes.  "No," she says quickly, "it's not that I didn't - "

 

She stops the torrent before it can begin, summoning up all her patience so that she doesn't scream at herself.  She remembers the wounded expression on Bernie's face when she pulled her hand away and hurried towards their car.  She'd cursed the rain at the time.  Now, Serena wishes she'd bathed in it - for Bernie's sake and for her own.  Even if it was only symbolic, Serena knows she turned down the opportunity to wash her iniquities away.  Or at least try.

 

"I'm sorry," she says again.  This time she means it.  This time, Bernie's looking at her and Serena feels like she can barely breathe.  "It shouldn't make a difference," she chokes out.  "But this is all new to me."

 

Bernie's eyebrows rise, disappearing under her wispy fringe.  "But it's old hat to me?" she responds incredulously.

 

"No, I didn't say that.  But you have done this before."

 

"This?"  Bernie shakes her head, confused.

 

"You've had relationships with women.  It's not like being with a man."

 

"Glad you noticed," Bernie mutters and Serena's features sharpen in reprove.  They stare at one another for a second before Bernie lets out another deep sigh.  "Look, I haven't done this before.  Not with anyone - not even Marcus.  I've waited a long time for you, Serena Campbell, and now you're here with me I want to catch up on all the things I've missed.  The stupid, normal, irrelevant things people do together that never felt right before and now...now they do.  Because of you."

 

 

"Like walking in the rain and holding my hand?" Serena says timidly, contrition and comprehension dawning warmly over her face.

 

"Like being with someone I love and not worrying and hiding and lying about how I feel.  I'm proud of who you are, Serena.  I feel proud of myself when I'm with you."

 

Serena hasn't asked for the tears that prickle behind her eyes but they appear anyway.  She blinks them away and tries not to think about a world without Bernie in it and how close they both came to living in that loneliness.  Bernie puts a hand on her cheek, her thumb coming away wet when she swipes it beneath Serena's eye.

 

"Now I can live the kind of life I want to, I don't want to waste a single minute," Bernie whispers.  She's achingly vulnerable even if her eyes burn with intensity.  Serena's surging up from the bed and into Bernie's arms in a heartbeat; she kisses Bernie hard to try and sate the sudden hunger in her belly.  She's the only true constraint in her life, the realist quashing the romantic time and again to drum some sense into that head of hers, as her mother always used to say.  But it's her heart that's reverberating inside her head as she presses herself against Bernie.  It gathers the sound of raindrops, percussion and harmony at the same time.

 

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." she murmurs over and over against Bernie's mouth.  When she reels back, they're both breathing hard.  One of the pages of Bernie's book is creased from where it was trapped between them.  Bernie picks it up and shoves it onto the bedside table, a frown burrowing between her brows.

 

"I'm sorry too," Bernie says, shaking her head.  Serena's fingers grasp her own and hold on tight.  She smiles down at the sight of them.  Perhaps they are inextricably linked, too, in ways that Bernie's always dismissed as too fanciful, too impractical to ever happen.  "It's so juvenile," she laughs self-consciously, but Serena's gaze is dark and liquid and Bernie knows she wants to experience every moment that's left with this woman.  It doesn't feel juvenile at all.

 

Serena hums, then pushes back and leaps from the bed.  She holds out her hand and beckons Bernie.  "Come on," she says brightly.  "Our boots and coats are downstairs."

 

"What are you doing?" 

 

"Going for a walk in the rain with someone I love and," Serena points a finger into the air and pauses for dramatic emphasis, "I'm going to hold her hand because it'll make her happy and that's...that's all I really want, Bernie.  I'm not good at telling you and even worse at showing you but this - this I can do."

 

Bernie is agape.  "Now?" she blurts.  "Have you lost your mind?  It's tipping down out there."

 

"All the more reason to throw caution to the wind," Serena tells her firmly, wiggling her fingers.  "Now, come on, Major.  At the double."

 

Serena's very difficult to resist when she's on a mission and, clearly, she is.  Her smile alone is enough to make Bernie throw up yet another white flag and push back the covers, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.  

 

"If we both come down with the flu you'll regret this," Bernie grumbles as Serena takes her hand and draws her close.

 

"How about we cross that bridge if and when we get to it," Serena says softly.  Bernie can't help leaning in and kissing her, their lips barely touching before Serena leans back and looks into her eyes.  "And all the others in between.  Together.  I can't do it without you."

 

It makes sense, then, that Serena isn't holding back.  She's floundering.  They both are from time to time.  Bernie's struggled alone for so long, locked in her head and heart and a tumult of emotions she simply couldn't ever allow to roam free.  Liberation is a funny thing, she thinks, as Serena laughs and leads her from the bedroom.  It's the one thing she's longed for and, now that she has it, Bernie is as terrified as Serena.  

 

She tightens her grip on Serena's hand and laughs as they make their way downstairs.  It's the first time ever that being scared has felt this good.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
